In our Sunday school class, we've been doing a study of sorts on Deuteronomy. If you're anything like me, you can get really bogged down in the Old Testament. I have a hard time reading {and understanding} it sometimes. Anyway. One of the co-teachers is actually a professor on the OT at a university here. And, he's kind of awesome.
In class, we went over some things in the last few chapters of Deut. about Moses, the promised land {Canaan}, the Israelites and Joshua. To make a long story short, Moses dies before the Israelites enter the promised land. Joshua is the one assigned with the task to take their people in. Moses was this great prophet and man of God...and Joshua had to follow him. As in, he was the "head guy" after Moses died. Talk about pressure!! I can just hear his thoughts... "I can never measure up to all that Moses was." "I'll never do ___ like Moses did." Before Moses dies, God tells him to remind Joshua to "be strong and of good courage" because God has gone before him.
After going through this, David {who's teaching the lesson} tells/reminds us that we each have challenges in our lives. All of us have people - Christians - we look up to and strive to be like. But the thing is, we're not those people. We can try to be like them, which isn't a bad thing, but we'll never actually be them. We shouldn't try to live up to someone else's standards. We need to "be strong and of good courage" because not only will God be with us through it all, He's gone before us into the unknown territory, just as He did with Joshua.
That's when it hit me.
All the challenges I'm facing right now - GD, hypertension, Joe going to WLC this week, extra OB checkups - God saw a long time ago. Not only that, God made me and my body to do this whole pregnancy thing. GD, hypertension, child birth... All of it. Worrying about it isn't going to help. Worrying could even make it worse. I can't really do anything to change any of this. But there's one thing I can do.
I can be strong and take comfort in the fact that God has gone before me into all the unknown ahead, and that He'll be with me every step of the way. It's still somewhat scary {I can't lie - the idea of giving birth is kind of freaking me out}, and that's ok.
So yeah. Big eye-opening day for me. It's been a long time coming and I'm glad it finally happened. I can't say that I'm fully back on track, but I'm definitely headed in the right direction. For those of you who have said prayers for me regarding this, thank you! Now let's just hope and pray that nothing eventful happens in the next few weeks. I'm tired of being a Debbie Downer!
